The Grass Fic
by TwentyOneCatWhiskers
Summary: An actual dream I actually had about weird buildings, snakes and astro turf. But this time, it's Dan and Phil and it's very, very strange. (Referenced in chapter 46 of Outre, rated T for kinda' gorey content. Might delete one day)


Phil Lester had no idea why he was here. He didn't remember deciding to come or even how he got here in the first place, but here he was – slightly timorous and very disconcerted.

As he slowly turned his head to look about, his breath staggered, he could smell the strong scent of animals.

He saw he was in an empty white corridor and around him were many people he knew…

This band of humans included, of course, his best friend, Dan Howell, wearing a black backpack over his shoulder.

"Dan?" Phil started, blinking a few times to make sure he was seeing correctly as he looked slightly upwards to meet Dan's gaze.

"Something wrong?" Dan asked. He had no expression on his face but his voice had a very faint air of concern to it.

Phil was going to open his mouth to reply, but he then realised he didn't really know if anything was wrong after all.

"Ah… It's nothing," he swallowed, shaking his head, dismissively, "I forgot what I was going to say…" and he averted his eyes to stare down the hall to the left.

It was quite far away, but he could just about spy a room that somewhat resembled a café.

He was starving and finding something to eat would have been great, but having no idea where he was or how he got there, he didn't want to separate himself from his group.

He spun around on his heels to face the crowd behind him, who were idly standing around and doing nothing in particular. There were around 10 of them but Phil couldn't identify everyone; the only people he recognised were, strangely enough, his and Dan's Sim, Dil, along with a few of his old friends whom he hadn't seen is years.

"Should we go?" Dan asked, gently placing a hand on Phil's shoulder and giving a tender smile.

Phil jumped back in slight surprise at the sudden physical contact.

"Uh… yeah," he nodded, though he didn't know where exactly they were going.

Dan led him to the right to a doorway with plastic door curtains covering it,

"Snakes," he said, blankly.

"What?" Phil hawed, raising his eyebrows, confusedly.

Dan pointed upwards to a sign above the door that simply read a load of blurry gibberish.

"That doesn't say snakes, Dan," Phil pointed out, but both Dan and the crowd of people behind them ushered him ahead anyway.

He nervously pushed the plastic curtains aside to wander through to be greeted with a man in a hat with cork tied to the brim, his arms covered in snakes.

Dan somehow had walked past Phil and was now to his right, arms folded.

Phil stepped closer until he was almost stood behind him and, with an uneasy feeling, watched the man covered in snakes as he started to one by one pick them off his arms.

The man looked up to Phil and gave a disturbingly uncanny grin, taking the last snake and letting it slither between his fingers, holding it close to Phil's face so that it's tongue almost touched his nose.

"They're all venomous," the man pointed out, which made having the snake so close to his face even more unnerving.

Snake man soon moved onto shoving his pets into other people's faces, telling them all about reptiles, and Dan managed to lead Phil out of the room, sneaking behind the crowd.

"I don't trust that guy and his snakes," Dan said, brushing his hands off and slipping them into his back jean pockets.

"Me neither…" Phil agreed, biting his lip and swallowing to clear the lump forming in his throat. Saying he was confused would be putting it nicely. He was glad to be away from everyone, though, and the smell of the reptile enclosure was beginning to make him sick to the stomach, not least to the head.

"Should we find something to eat?" Dan suggested, wandering towards the cafeteria at the end of the hall that Phil had seen earlier.

"I mean, a drink would be nice, but I'm not sure I could stomach a meal…" Phil replied, briefly peering over his shoulder to look behind and to the plastic-covered doorway.

"We need to go," Dan said, grabbing his sleeve and stopping in his tracks.

Phil stared to him in puzzlement,

"Why? And where?" He asked, but didn't get a reply as Dan took his hand and pulling him to the left where there were some stairs of which he had not before noticed.

"We're going over the barrier," Dan replied, flatly, dragging him down the steps and to some sliding glass doors at the end of them.

"What barrier?" Phil hissed, irritably.

"To back home."

"I don't remember a barrier being involved."

"Just come on," Dan sighed as they stepped outside and into the intense light.

Phil had no idea why (as he had no idea about many things that were happening), but there was an awfully steep mountain towering above them, a strangely flat path leading the entire way up it.

Yet, for some reason, the only thing Phil found outlandish about the whole situation was why there was this aforementioned path built into the rock face. It didn't seem to be man-made but nothing natural could form itself in such a way…

"We're going… up there?" Phil asked, squinting in the light and using his spare hand to shield his eyes from the glaring sun.

"We are indeed," Dan affirmed, swinging his backpack from his shoulder to hold it in his arms and unzip it, "I haven't brought any food, though, so hopefully it won't be a long trip…"

"You didn't bring any food for a mountaineering trip?" Phil exclaimed, crossly, "What if we get stuck up there, Dan?"

"Don't worry; I have astro turf," Dan assured him, putting the backpack back on.

Phil's expression softened and he tilted his head, opening his mouth again to speak, but deciding against it.

"Come on, then," Dan mumbled, starting to trudge up the path.

"Why are we going up here?" Phil asked, nervously.

"So when we get to the top, we can jump over the barrier," Dan explained.

And in his tired and exhausted state, Phil saw no holes in this plan and the thought that jumping off the side of a mountain would without doubt kill them both never crossed his mind.

So he followed Dan up the mountain.

Even though he was slightly confused, he'd rather journey up a strange path and be with Dan than be stood at the bottom of the cliff, alone and mystified.

He anxiously cast a glance behind him to see the rest of the group emerging from the odd white building and trooping along behind him and Dan.

This was going to be a long journey, but there was nothing else to be done.

It was getting dark very quickly and it didn't take very long – maybe even only ten minutes – for everyone to start tiring and for Dan to start slowing and eventually stop.

"We should find shelter," he said, making eye contact with Phil, who stared back, beat and sweating.

"That'd be great…" Phil panted, dropping to his knees and breathing heavily.

"There's a hut there, look," Dan said, pointing up to a small shack a way up ahead of them.

They'd had some casual conversation on their way up to this point and the only thing Phil really wanted was a lie down and something to drink. He was starving, too, but he was forced to remember that they didn't have food, instead for some bizarre reason having a full rucksack of astro turf.

"I'm so tired…" he coughed, his heart feeling like it was beating out of his ribcage, "You'll have to drag me the rest of the way…"

Dan sniggered, clearing assuming he wasn't serious, and called a cheery 'come on, then' as he made his way up to the hut.

Everyone seemed to pass Phil in a blur and nobody enquired about his well-being as he keeled over his knees and beads of sweat steadily dripped onto the rock beneath him.

He gathered enough strength to pick himself up after a while and shakily stumbled after his troupe and eventually pushed open the door of the cabin, breathing in the stuffy air.

Inside the wood lodge that was made entirely of pine planks boarding the walls and almost every surface, everyone was already laid down on sleeping bags scattered around the floor.

In the middle of the room sat a red-haired woman with black glasses and wearing a green blouse. There were two parrots perched on each of her shoulders – one blue and one brightly coloured, the latter of which seemed very energetic and kept twitching and fluttering in an unusual manner.

"Welcome home!" The woman on the floor greeted Phil, smiling, "Do you have any parrots?"

Phil was too exhausted to think of a logical answer so blurted out,

"Yes; two of them."

"You do know we don't have any pets, don't you?" Dan's voice asked.

Looking about, Phil saw that he was seated at a table at the other end of the room, his elbows resting on it as he absent-mindedly unzipped his backpack, which was laid on the tabletop beside him.

"Don't we?" Phil replied, sitting down next to him and wiping his brow with his sleeve, "That's odd: I thought we had birds…"

Dan unrolled from his bag, a small sheet of fake grass used to line gardens and football fields that always poke your feet when you stand on them.

"What are you doing?" Phil asked, his eyes slowly drifting closed.

"It's edible," Dan replied, chewing the edge off it. His face turned sour and he seemed to have a slight gag reflex, but handed some over anyway.

Without thinking for a second Phil took it. It was only small – about as large as a bottle top – so he didn't think it'd do him any harm. Besides, he was so hungry right now that he was beginning to consider chewing the edge of the table off and eating _that._

His brain didn't register what he was doing even when he brought his hand to his face and saw what he was holding turn to spikes in his fingers.

He didn't eat, but he could still feel it cut his mouth and his tongue, but he was half asleep and it didn't seem to hurt _that_ much…

He didn't even notice any pain until he realised that blood was beginning to drip out of his mouth.

"Soft and neat," Dan said, brushing his hands off and smirking before laying his chin on the tabletop and closing his eyes.

Phil's breath staggered and he flashed a scared look to Dan as the blood from his mouth and throat turned from a drip into a steady flow.

He clapped a hand over his mouth to stop it but it didn't help and the liquid found its way between his fingers anyway. He started to choke on it and excused himself to stand and stagger outside, feeling faint.

And if he'd have seen himself right then, he'd have known that he'd never been so pale.

He fell down onto the rocks and choked up on his own blood, his lungs feeling as if they were jolted up into his throat, and he stared up into the sky, putting his hands on the ground and wheezing, loudly.

As he coughed up a cataract of his own blood onto the backs of his own hands, he heard a loud voice from nowhere.

He couldn't identify its source, but he heard what it said,

"Come on, guys; wakey, wakey!"


End file.
